


A Dream is a Wish your Heart Makes

by Hator



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Also there's some special k bashing, Dream World, Implied/Referenced Suicide, So plz be ready for that, Something I'd like to see happen in P5R but definably won't, get ready for sad times bois
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-18
Updated: 2019-06-18
Packaged: 2020-05-14 09:20:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19270333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hator/pseuds/Hator
Summary: Kasumi has trapped the thieves in their dreams and it's up to Joker to break them out of it.He's freed all except one.Something tells him the last one will be the most challenging of them all.





	A Dream is a Wish your Heart Makes

**Author's Note:**

>   
> _Wishes are dreams_  
>  And dreams are pretend.  
> So we know that reason  
> Wins out in the end.  
> 

He wasn’t sure what he was expecting but it certainly wasn’t this.

 

The door he was standing outside of was worn and sandy white. Because of the color, he could see the dents and scuff marks in the door clear as day, but the raggedy yellow welcome mat did a good enough job of indicating that yes, this was someone’s home and not an inconspicuous drug den.

 

The sign read 42B.

 

Getting the address had been simple enough. It wasn’t like the others. This time they apparently still knew each other so although his initial text message was met sardonically, Akechi had sent him his address quickly enough.

 

_Dude, how do you not know my address? You practically live here._

 

He didn’t know what to think about that

 

His head had been full of white noise from the moment he had woken up and something in him was relieved about all of this being almost over. But still, the door in front of him stood as a reminder that he had one final push before the finish line.

 

He didn’t remember knocking but he figured he must have because suddenly the door had swung open and there _he_ was.

 

“Oh, there you are. I figured you were coming over.”

 

Akira nearly stepped back.

 

The boy in front of him was a stranger. Gone were the leather gloves and steamed dress shirts Akira had grown so accustomed to. Instead, he was dressed in grey sweatpants and a ratty old t-shirt that was covered in faded mystery stains. His feet were bare and his hair was picked up in a ponytail, tied back with an obnoxiously bright orange hair tie.

 

He leaned against the door frame with a casualness that shocked Akira to his core.

 

He was just a normal kid.

 

_He was just normal._

 

“You want to come in or something?”

 

The boy asked and quirked an eyebrow at Akira's dull expression.

 

Akira’s mouth moved on its own to reply

 

“-or something.”

 

Goro smiled and his grin was crooked and lopsided but it reached his eyes and it was so unexpected, Akira couldn’t help but smile back.

 

“Alright, get in here jackass. My mom’s coming back soon.”

 

The boy retreated back inside and Akira followed him tentatively.

 

_This had to be a trap...It couldn't be just this there **had** to be something more..._

 

“Do you want cereal? We have Special K and...Fruit Loops.”

 

Akira had only just stepped through the doorway and already the boy had sauntered over to the counter and laid out two blue porcelain bowls. One of them had a particularly nasty chip in its side but otherwise, they seemed normal enough. He was looking through the cabinets, verifying the cereal selection. 

 

Akira forced his tongue to unlatch itself from the roof of his mouth.

 

“Special K sounds good”

 

Goro made a sound of disbelief in response

 

“Jesus Christ, that's my mom's cereal. I really can’t believe people under 30 actually eat this... But alright. Your funeral.”

 

He shrugged in response and while the boy poured out their breakfast, Akira took a look around the apartment.

 

Akira was still standing in the living room but Goro was in the back corner, standing in the small kitchen unit. Just one cabinet, one countertop, a stove, and a fridge but considering who lived here, Akira assumed it’d been enough. There was a small, wooden kitchen table between the two spaces, and the two rickety chairs surrounding it looked ready to fall apart at any second. The living room itself was carpeted, a soft brown and the fibers felt crunchy beneath his feet. The only furniture was a small black couch and a coffee table with nothing on it but an old banged up TV. He could see a small hallway in front of him, with two plain doors across from each other. Both of the doors were closed and Akira didn't have any memory of what was inside them anyway.

 

But what really stood out about the small space were the pictures on the walls.

 

They were everywhere.

 

Pictures of Goro and a woman who looked very much like him.

 

Pictures of them at the beach, at the museum….

 

She had pictures of his middle school graduation, of Goro’s first steps…Pictures of the two of them at the park and pictures of the two of them in a little village, surrounded by what seemed like family members.

 

He didn't remember walking over to it but somehow he was looking at a picture of the woman present in all of the picture laying down in a hospital bed. In her arms, she was holding a pale little baby who had been swaddled in a light blue blanket. The frame it was in was different from the rest of the pictures. It looked older somehow. She looked down at the baby in her arms with such a genuine expression that he couldn’t help but wonder if it was real. It reminded him of the Sayuri.

 

_Yusuke had cried. Akira had never seen him like that. So broken-_

 

Suddenly a gently chiding voice snapped him out of his thoughts.

 

“Hey! Akira, get over here, your sawdust is getting cold.”

 

He was scared to rip his eyes away from it.

 

He thought that maybe when he turned around the room would fall apart, and there would be a gun to his head and a cold look in Akechi’s eyes and it would all fade away and twist into something from his nightmares…

                            

But it didn’t.

 

He turned around and it was just Goro and he was just sitting at the table, checking his phone and shoving spoonful after spoonful of Froot Loops into his mouth.

 

A painful reminder that this was not _his_ nightmare or _his_ dream. 

 

That none of this was his at all. 

 

“Yeah, sorry.”

 

Another noise of disbelief, another eye roll, another ugly smile that reached his eyes.

 

“Don’t be. I keep telling Ma to take the older ones down but she refuses. Says I was cuter when I was younger anyway.”

 

With an insulted huff Akechi turned back to his cereal and his phone, but not before giving Akira -and his Special K- a pointed look. 

 

Akira wished he hadn’t said yes to the cereal.

 

He didn’t know if he could stomach it.

 

He put his body on automatic pilot and then his mouth was full of cereal that tasted like nothing -though if that was the brand or his own mind he couldn’t tell.

 

Goro suddenly put his phone down and Akira flinched ever so slightly.

 

“So, another Sunday. What’re you up for? I’ve got homework but I can always just do it when I get back. Wanna call Ryuji? Maybe we can go catch a movie!”

 

And suddenly Akira’s mouth was lead and he faintly recalled scrolling through his normal phone contacts this morning. It had been so commonplace, so average, that he hadn’t noticed the significance until now. 

 

Ryuji had been the first.

 

The real Ryuji was probably at home, waiting for his return.

 

For _their_ return.

 

He was almost tempted to say yes. He missed his best friend more than words could say and the last time Akira had seen him... Ryuji hadn’t been himself.

 

It was so tempting to just forget himself, to lose himself here and to say yes and hang out with Ryuji - _his Ryuji-,_ and hang out with this boy, who was all too familiar but completely unknown.

 

But Akira had already accepted he was much too selfish for any of that so instead he said

 

“Akechi, I’m so sorry but you have to wake up.”

 

It wasn’t instant, he knew that by now.

 

But this time it felt stronger somehow. Usually, there’d be a shift at those words alone, some kind of tension in the air.

 

But instead, Goro rolled his eyes again and swallowed another spoonful of his sugary cereal.

 

“I am awake dipshit. You woke me up by texting me about my address at 7 AM. What? Next, you’re gonna wake me up and ask for my middle name?”

 

Another spoonful went by and all Akira could do was stare into his own bowl and grip the cold metal spoon in his hand as tightly as he could.

 

“I don’t have one by the way. It’s just Goro Akechi”

 

The metal seemed to bite back, grounding him in his own reality.

 

The table was wooden and had scuffs and dents and he could still see the faint lines of something that looked like…. pen marks?

 

None of the others had been this real.

 

He had always been able to point out some kind of unrealistic flaw, some kind of mistake or something they had easily overlooked.

 

But he knew –had always known- that Akechi owned the strongest resolve of them all.

 

He opened his mouth to say something else, but suddenly the door began to unlock itself and his head was stuffed full of cotton and Akechi’s eyes shone _so brightly_ that Akira couldn’t bring himself to say a single word.

 

“Hey mom!”

 

And then she came in.

 

They had the same nose, Akira noted absentmindedly.

 

And the same lips, and the same hair color. The same gentle curve in their jaw, and the same delicate frame.

 

A part of him was thankful for the fact that Akechi looked nothing like his father.

 

 

This wasn’t the first dead parent walking Akira had seen. 

 

He had seen the Sayuri herself. He had finally met the woman who made Sojiro light up like the stars in the sky. He had seen Okumura laughing in the garden with his daughter, just the two of them without a care for the world or the stars or anything around them.

 

He had seen them all.

 

But nevertheless.

 

It still hurt **every time.**

 

She walked in wearing a nurse’s uniform and looking absolutely exhausted but somehow, despite all of that, she still mustered up the energy to smile back at her son's beaming face.

 

Akira noticed there were only two chairs at the table so he scrambled to get up and let her sit, _just let her rest_.

 

Only to feel her hand grip his shoulder.

 

Her touch was gentle.

 

“Akira, no, don’t worry. I’m about to go to bed anyway.”

 

She let him go with an affectionate pat, walked past them a bit and suddenly stopped, looking down on them with a playful smirk.

 

“Goro what did you do now? Akira’s never here this early.”

 

She ruffled his hair as she walked towards the cabinet and Goro looked slightly embarrassed on his behalf.

 

“Well, he’s the one who woke me up for once. I think we’re gonna go watch a movie.”

 

She leaned against the counter, a mug full of some kind of juice in her hands.

 

“Alright, that sounds like fun. Have you done all your homework?”

 

Akechi froze and Akira simply watched.

 

It was so commonplace, so childish.

 

He’d seen the real Ryuji do the exact same thing with his own mother and the knife in Akira’s chest twisted.

 

“Well…uh….I was going to do it later?”

 

The small smile never left her face.

 

“Alright kid. I trust you.”

 

She stepped forward, put her hand on his shoulder and kissed the top of his head ever so gently.

 

It was tender and beautiful and Akira couldn’t stand to look at it.

 

“I love you Goro”

 

“Love you too mom!”

 

Akira stared into his cereal until he heard the bedroom door close behind her.

 

“Hey, do you want that? It might taste like shit but god damn if I’m going to let food go to waste.”

 

It was hard but he had to do it.

 

He’d be stuck here forever otherwise.

 

But…

 

Unlike the others, there weren’t many changes here. Just a boy who had never been broken and a mother who found the strength to live and loved him with all of her heart.

 

They were _friends_ , and even better, he still had his own friends and his own life. He could delude himself into believing this was real _so easily_.

 

And who knew how long this could last?

 

Maybe they could live this dream forever.

 

“Akechi. Wake up.”

 

And there it was.

 

The noticeable edge in the air. The tension thick as a board.

 

“W-What?”

 

And God how he just wanted to stop. To say nevermind and just eat his cereal and go to the movies and get some ice cream and be _normal_.

 

But he had realized a long time ago that that wasn’t what fate had in store for either of them.

 

“You know this isn’t real. This isn’t your life.”

 

The air around him was trying to suffocate him, stop him...

 

Stop him from finishing his sentence, his statement, _his life_.

 

But he kept going

 

“Your name is Goro Akechi. Your father is Masayoshi Shido.”

 

Goro was still sitting there. Phone and cereal long having been abandoned. Simply frozen.

 

“Your mother killed herself when you were five years old. You spent your childhood being passed around from foster home to foster home until you were 15 and then you awakened the power of your persona.”

 

He was just sitting there, staring at Akira unblinkingly.

 

Akira wanted to stop, wished he could stop.

 

“You presented that power to your father and he used you as his personal assassin. What he didn’t know is that you were only following his bidding to enact your revenge. You wanted vengeance not only for yourself but...For her too....”

 

Tears finally started running down Goro’s face and Akira had to look away, look at anything else.

 

His eyes fell on the same picture from before and the pain just got worse.

 

God, it never got any easier.

 

“T-That’s not true. I don’t know my dad…I never needed to know him, I have my mom and she's always been enough….Akira…Why are you saying this?”

 

Akira forced himself to look Goro in the eyes yet again.

 

“How did we meet?”

 

“A-At school. Shujin. We’re in the same class and-“

 

“Alright. What’s the name of our homeroom teacher?”

 

Akira’s ears were ringing and each breath he took felt like knives going down his throat but still, he kept steady eye contact.

 

He had watched a nature documentary once that detailed how predators looked their prey in the eyes and watched as it died as a way to honor their sacrifice. 

 

He figured it was the least he could do to honor the light in his eyes as it slowly faded away. 

 

“You don’t know, do you?”

 

“Yes, I do! It’s-it’s uh-“

 

“You don’t know. Because you’ve never attended my school.”

 

The tears didn’t stop and Akira realized he was crying as well.

 

“Goro, please…. You’re the last one. You need to snap out of it. We need to go back.”

 

The reaction was near immediate.

 

Akechi shot up, the chair he was sitting on slamming to the ground and hit the kitchen floor with a sharp crack. 

 

NO! No, no, no, no….we can’t! WE CAN’T!”

 

His expression was wild, his hair tie was about to fall out of his hair entirely and his hands were gripping the table like it was his lifeline.

 

Akira remembered a couple of days after saving him from Shido’s Palace, Akechi had shown up at Leblanc in the middle of the night.

 

He’d knocked at the door and Akira had woken up thinking there was a very polite robbery.

 

Then he saw Akechi at the door and he wished something as simple as a robbery was about to take place.

 

But nevertheless, he opened the door and Akechi sat at his usual seat and Akira put on his apron, got behind the bar and made him coffee at 2 in the morning.

 

He’d thought they'd finally reached a breaking point. He thought Akechi had come to apologize. Even though there was still a part of him that believed Akechi would shoot him yet again, despite attempting to sacrifice himself for them days earlier.

 

He'd thought Akechi would scream, would cry...

 

But Akechi didn't do any of that.

 

He just sat there, drank his coffee and left.

 

That was when Akira realized Akechi had reached his breaking point a long time ago. 

 

And now he was just broken. 

 

Faced with the familiar sight of Goro Akechi on the verge of a mental breakdown, Akira wished for the millionth time he could have gotten out of this dream alone.

 

He wished he could have gone back to his friends and his life and his world and lie through his teeth and tell them there was no way to bring Akechi back with him.

 

But instead the opposite was true and Akira was very selfish.

 

So, he stood up as well.

 

The light was fading from his eyes quickly, almost as dead as that night in the coffee shop.

 

“Akechi. You need to wake up.”

 

Akechi backed up, looking akin to an animal caught in a trap and suddenly he ran and Akira couldn’t stop him.

 

“Mom? MOM?”

 

And the door to her room was swung open by the remnants of a desperate young boy and then all Akira could hear was a sound that he knew would haunt him for the rest of his life.

 

An inhuman screech.

 

A cry full of grief and mourning and _pain_ and without looking Akira knew what Akechi had been forced to see for the second time in his life when if the world was good and kind, he never would have seen it in the first place.

 

Akechi fell to his knees and clawed at the carpet and slowly the walls began to slide away.

 

The pictures disappeared, the table vanished and suddenly it was like they had been in mementos the entire time.

 

Akechi was still slumped over. The only difference was his clothing.

 

He was wearing his black mask attire once more.

 

Akira had seen this time and time again.

 

He’d seen a young man with so much to look forward to slowly turn back into Morgana, a cat with nothing.

 

He’d seen Ryuji’s phantom pain break his leg all over again and he’d seen Ann’s eyes slowly turn back to blue as Shiho fell from the roof once more.

 

He’d watched Yusuke’s exhibit go up in flames and simply looked on as Makoto reverted to a helpless young girl with tears in her eyes and doubts in her heart.

 

Both Haru and Futaba clung to their parents as they disappeared and Futaba had clutched at the air where Wakaba had been as if she had only turned invisible but was still there somehow. Still by her side. 

 

 And though it was selfish he couldn’t help but feel relieved at how it was finally all over.

 

“y-you should have left me there….you should have left me there.... you should have….”

 

His voice trailed off and Akira heard the faint roar of an engine coming towards them.

 

‘I’m sorry. I wish I could.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> OOF ow this one hurt. 
> 
> If you guys want to know what the other phantom thieves dreams were let me know and I'd be more than happy to tell you! Also, just let me know what you think of this overall!
> 
> I'm a playwright primarily and I don't write a lot of narratives but this was actually a fun try! I'm got a few other narrative ideas so please let me know if you'd like to see more of this and what you think I can improve upon for the future!
> 
> EDIT: Changed the title of the fic from "Once Upon a Dream" to "A Dream is a Wish your Heart Makes" because I had originally intended for it to be a reference to Cinderella (as a little nod to Kasumi's role) BUT I'm an idiot and I misremembered which song was which


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